Joseph Buttle 1920-1983ShrineCo. 1952-1974

Following the design revolution of appliances of the 1950’s, Joseph Buttle, a dreamer and schemer, created ShrineCo. in 1953.His dream was to make worship easier and more efficient, and sell this door to door. Joseph wanted to introduce the idea of shrines to American Consumerism in order to make the definition of shrine not just an icon to American society, but a necessity.He did this with his patented shrines. A shrine for any icon, belief, or denomination of religion, Mr. Buttle was simi-sucsessful until the early 1970’s when his company fizzled out.

Interesting biography of Joseph Buttle - (scroll down to see re-creations of his shrines)

Joseph Buttle was born in Hamden Connecticut in 1920.He was raised in a middle class home by his parents Eugene and Margret Buttle.Margret a homemaker and religious connoisseur and Eugene a traveling pharmaceutical salesman.

Margret, having an emotionally and mentally unsound personality and strong addictive traits, consumed daily several of the drugs that Eugene sold. This explains why Margret had such delusional visions and beliefs of religion that she transformed into brainwashing material, which was eventually injected into Joseph’s young mind.Margret was not necessarily a bad influence for Joseph but an influence that was branded into his mind for a long time.Eventually Joseph simi-relized some truth to the reality of being taught the faith he knew by a drug induced, simi-psycho religious fanatic.Throughout the psychological journeys of his life, Joseph’s mind never fully grasped the handicap his mother had given him and thus explains why he did the remarkable things he did.

Eugene, his father, was a traveling salesman.Remembered by most as the Irish gypsy, selling hoax elixirs and healing powders formally as medical supplies to small town hospitals, drug stores, and to the general public.Eugene was not at home most of Joseph’s upbringing.He most likely stayed away because of the embarrassing situation with his wife’s psychological status and drug addiction.

Joseph’s upbringing was standard; despite his religious mother he did not attend a private religious grade school, therefore learning all religious info from his mother.Rarely did they ever attend any church services except for weddings or funerals, or special request.His mother, raised Pentecostal, was disgusted with the ranks of her religion and its practices.She leached out searching for a perfect religionto rely on, never fully finding her crutch she jumped from religion to religion.Practicing Buddhism, Hindu, Judaism, and more until she was brainwashed with religion.From here she unconsciously created her own worship and religion, then she undoubtedly pushed it upon Joseph during his upbringing.

After high school Joseph did not attend college, he resumed life working at a machine shop, fabricating aluminum toilet seats for ships and submarines.Within the course of his many loyal years at the machine shop he practiced a faith that he had subconsciously created through the many years of persuasion received from his mother.One afternoon at the machine shop Joseph had an epiphany, he then decided to leach out and tell others the word of his mysterious self made faith that only existed in his mind.His friends and colleagues did not take well to the nonsense he spoke and told him he should reconsider his unusual faith.With this reaction Joseph became extremely ill minded.Disgusted with his friend’s advice, he set out on a pilgrimage to educate a certain type of person that would accept his faith and join him in the pilgrimage.Joseph traveled across the U.S. visiting cities like Cincinnati Ohio, Pittsburg Pennsylvania, and Kansas City.He worked odd jobs in each city staying for a few weeks or enough time it would take to spread the word of this unknown faith.

Joseph’s pilgrimage was not up to what he wanted it to be, he knew something wasn’t quite right with his own message he was spreading.Joseph’s pilgrimage finally came to and end and he realized his beliefs were unsound.Joseph was staying at a convent in upstate Minneapolis; there he spoke to a young entrepreneur by the name of Frances Newman.Frances could not believe the faith Joseph was trying to enlighten him with, he thought it was a joke.Instead of ignoring Joseph and dismissing him as some poor crazy cult religious freak as most people did, Frances got Joseph to come to his senses.Joseph was in shock, now believing the words he preached were unsound, he became disoriented and suicidal.Frances quickly helped Joseph think of a way he could still use his astonishing energy of traveling and preaching the word of a faith, thus ShrineCo began.That night at the convent in Minneapolis, he concocted the entire business scheme of ShrineCo.Joseph realized then, that a faith is important, but not as important as not having one, or at least something to worship.He immediately returned home to Hamden Connecticut and started writing his business statement:

One who has faith, and takes the time to understand what one worships, is stronger minded and cleaner soled.

When Joseph Buttle first started ShrineCo in the 50’s, the days of modern luxuries and features were prominent on any household item, especially appliances.Toasters had “automatic anti burn mechanisms”, refrigerators had “built in defrost” and “safe temp meters”, stoves had “grillivators”, andvacuum cleaners had hundreds of attachments for thousands of uses.It was the day and trend of gadgets and gizmos to make life easier. Even though Joseph was not a trend seeker, he followed along with society and went crazy with it when it came time to create his shrines.“Automatic Sacrifice!”“Worship Accelerator!”“Praise magnifier!”There were endless options one could chose from when choosing a shrine!It was just like choosing the features on a new Buick!One could order a custom shrine, or chose from many models in a catalog.Joseph himself designed a questionnaire asking a series of questions that would decipher which shrine was best for each particular household.The form was completed and mailed in by the consumer, then an exact shrine could be created to fit the families worship needs.Joseph also sold his shrines door to door, surprisingly enough It Worked!!

Joseph’s continued his new business with a good bit of success, although sometimes the 50’s were slow hard times.The consumer he projected his product to did not quite understand his actions with the business, but they did not reject him, they allowed him door to door, selling shrines.Most of his business went to the shallow consumer you can sell anything too, or the type of consumer that tries to stay ahead of the crowd purchasing the latest fad.In the 50’s, very few religious folk took him seriously, but he managed to overcome them selling thousands of yard shrines custom built for Catholics, Joseph Buttle’s ShrineCo was a success!

The 60’s was an egg shell cracker for Joseph,with the change of Americans views on religion and the huge anti war movement and revolution youth brought to the nation, Joseph’s business took a huge right turn.Buddhism was acknowledged, and Joseph was cranking out shrines like pancakes!Joseph also concentrated more on personalized shrines, for this was what his dream business was intended to be, a custom shrine maker.But the average American consumer just wasn’t ready for ShrineCo.It was only a special consumer that would have enough substance to request a shrine dedicated to a certain private object or feeling in there personal life, when Joseph met those people or those people met Joseph, they collaborated well.

There were some very special clients of Joseph’s during the 60’s, Emma Hartner, a sea captain’s wife, who had lost her husband, Captain Harris Hartner, at sea.She failed to believe his ship could have gone down, and even though she had never had any concrete faith she prayed every day to an unknown god that Mr. Hartner would return.Still she needed something more, a higher power to answer her questions.She met with Joseph and he created her a shrine, a shrine that she could use for her own private worship or honoring of her husband that had disappeared.Mrs. Hartner later coped with the idea that her husband was dead, and was able to accept it due to the powers of one of Joseph’s shrines.

Although Joseph did not judge anyone’s worship, he himself thought strangely of a particular cult in southern New Mexico thatcommissioned him to design and construct a positive energy shrine.Strangely enough the small cult believed that kinetic motion could create positive energy which entailed brought upon states of euphoria!Joseph never quite understood the worship, but he practiced with them and learned enough to create a shrine the “cult” was very pleased with.

By the mid 70’s ShrineCo had taken a dive.Business was no longer booming now that the beatniks and hippies had dried up.America’s ideas on worship were changing once again, almost stepping back in time and reverting to a more organized assemblage system of religion.Appliances were still being sold but no new characteristics were being offered,in fact a lot of the fantastic simple features on every day items had disappeared as well.Joseph Buttle could not keep up with the changing times and finally put ShrineCo. to rest in 1974.By this time he was close to 60 years old and he decided it was time.Joseph spent the last few years of his life retired In Connecticut, still making a custom shrine from time to time for special customers with special request, until he died in1983.Joseph most likely went to a peaceful resting place, and who knows, maybe people today worship him on his own shrines he created.

Joseph Buttle:“Portable Instant Automatic Sacrifice”

In the beginning Joseph did not have great knowledge and skills of an entrepreneur.His shrines were not created with a customer in mind, they were far fetched and the ideas he built on were not even close to modern times.For example one of Joseph’s first creations, “Portable Instant Automatic Sacrifice”, A shrine that burned its offering at the touch of a button.In the past many religions had the practice of sacrificing, but as times have changed so has the traditional style of offerings and sacrificing.Joseph had a brilliant idea to make a portable shine to be used as a tool to help aid sacrificing practices, but the practice of burning ones sacrifice was from the dark ages.Although today Joseph Buttle’s “Portable Instant Automatic Sacrifice” is a valuable collector’s item, in its day its consumer was not impressed.

Joseph Buttle:“Worship Accelerator”

1970 the error of time when consumers discovered they could purchase products that could save them time!No more waiting is what everyone wanted, and products had to adapt to this!Microwave ovens were invented, people used fast food drive through’s, and Joseph Buttle’s contribution to this fad was the “Worship Accelerator”.The time Americans were spending at their shines worshiping whatever, was eating into the rest of their fast paced lives.The worshiper consumer who owned the “Worship Accelerator” could take hours of worship and turn it into seconds!With “Worship Accelerator’s” patent design the power and holiness stamina of ones worship could reach its destination undetected of any alteration,(One’s God would never notice the difference upon receiving a real 2 hour session of worship, or a 2 second worship dialed up to 2 hours of worship by use of the “Worship Accelerator!”

Joseph Buttle:“Homage to coffee”

It was the early 60’s when Joseph Buttle decided to create a shrine dedicated to coffee.Coffee being the second largest trade in the world, having great faith and religious history, and being the most popular beverage, inspired him to create a worship icon to the history, popularity, praise, and love for the beverage.The shrine Joseph created for coffee catered directly to the American consumer.Percolated coffee was the most common source of preparation during the 60’s, therefore Joseph used the percolator, a recognizable item for the average consumer, to further the popularity of his shrine.It is unknown if any of his original coffee shrines exist today, from what I know about Joseph’s personality and craft, most likely his shrine resembles the one I created.

Joseph Buttle followed the history of coffee to inspire him to create his coffee shine, the following are a couple of stories he admired

Origin of Coffee: The most famous of the stories about the origin of coffee involves an Abyssinian [ab-uh-sin-ee-uh] (Now known as Ethiopian) goat herder named Kaldi who one day noticed that his normally docile goats had suddenly become exceptionally lively. On closer investigation Kaldi discovered his goats were nibbling the bright red berries from a shiny, dark-leafed shrub nearby. Bravely the goatherd tasted these berries himself and soon found, to his amazement that he felt extraordinarily stimulated and invigorated. Convinced that he had discovered a miracle, Kaldi picked some more of the berries and rushed off with them to show his local Imam, (a holy man of Abyssinian). The Imam, on hearing the story, pronounced the beans to be evil and flung them onto the fire, whereupon a delicious and exotic aroma soon filled the air. Hastily the Imam, changing his mind, raked the beans from the fire and threw them into a bowl of water to cool, and then tasted the water. So was the first recorded coffee "brewed" and enjoyed. And it involved an Imam, a religious figure that initiated praise to certain ideas, beliefs, and objects.This Imam of the central plateaus of Abyssinia most likely made “kofa” as it was called, an object of praise!

History of the praise of coffee in Italy/Venice: Coffee was introduced to Rome/Venice in 1615. Wine was the dominant drink of the time and area; therefore the wine makers of the time were terrified that the introduction of coffee would ruin the popularity and love of their vocation and product. The wine makers were smart enough to get some fanatic Christian priests involved who viciously attacked coffee.Coffee had been primarily a beverage of Islam, therefore by Christians considered the drink of the Devil.The priests proclaimed that if Christians were to partake of this hellish brew they risked eternal damnation. By the end of the sixteenth century priests of the Vatican sought to ban the drink from the Christian world. Pope Clement VIII considered the requests of his Cardinals but thought it imprudent to ban the beverage without having tasted it so he requested a sample of the Devils drink.As legend has it, the Pope was immediately enamored by the distinct, pungent aroma and taste. It was then he decided that to banish the delightful drink would be a greater sin and he baptized it on the spot giving rise to the popular Italian coffee beverage.

Joseph Buttle:“40 Gallon Praise Tank”

This model, although never officially named by Joseph Buttle, was mass produced.“The 40 Gallon Praise Tank” as it was called by its consumers, was designed for indoor or outdoor use; many were used as yard shrines, and were the first series of shrines Joseph made a profit from.The reason this particular shrine was so successful was its non demeanor.This shrine was made for the praise of any icon or belief, the “Miscellaneous Shrine”.If you wanted to buy some one a shrine for a birthday present, but wasn’t quite sure what they worshiped, this was the shrine to buy!As you see here a red mixer and a poodle stature are placed in the shrine, although unsure what the worship is one can guess, “Accidental poodle death by mixer praise”????

Joseph Buttle: The “Succumb” error

It was the early 70’s and Joseph Buttle’s ShrineCo. began the path to the end.After most of the hippies and beatniks dried up his business plummeted.Joseph decided to seek help from Frank Worth, a business adviser, Frank had one word for him, “China”.Frank insisted that Joseph make a simple mass produced item that would offer 75-85% revenue, a lot more than Joseph’s previous years of a 10-20% return. The idea was for Joseph to design an item that could be sent to a manufacturing company in China were the product could be cheaply and quickly mass produced.Frank also suggested his product be sold to a distribution company so that Joseph would not have to worry about selling it himself.Joseph did not like any of these new ideas but had no choice to succumb to them due to financial problems.The financial problems also forced Joseph to take his idea to a production company that would conceder his idea, if approved, they would hold all copyrights of the product; give Joseph the credit for the idea and creation, and only a portion of the revenue.Joseph went forth with the advice and presented to the production company a series of small plastic interchangeable piece shrines, similar to a food processor that slices and dices, or a vacuum that has not only has a hairdryer attachment but also a floor waxer and a closet de-moth-er attachment!These Small shrines he called “Occasion Shrines”, came with many interchangeable parts so that the consumer could create the shrine they needed for that day.He presented these shrines to the production company and they accepted, but by the time they were produced the production company had altered them so much they were nothing of his original idea.The production company had created “Instant Shrine”.Anyone could buy and use the shine for any reason, but they could not change the shrine to alter their worship.Joseph was not happy with this but was amused how the instant shrine worked!He later accepted them once receiving the checks that allowed him to retire started rolling in.

Joseph Buttle:“Praise wheel with automatic protruding strobe”

In the late 50’s, while thumbing through a National Geographic magazine, Joseph gained knowledge of Tibet and the Tibetan Prayer Wheel. Joseph was instantly intrigued, his curiosity could not keep him from Tibet to see for himself this newly discovered form of shrine. Upon his return to the U.S. Joseph franticly went to work to recreate his own form of prayer wheel. Unfortunately, prior to his journeys, Joseph failed to read the column in the magazine, and failed to further research the background and religious basis of the prayer wheel and its connection to Buddhism. He left for Tibet at the drop of a hat not knowing what to expect, and returned without any new knowledge of the Tibetan Prayer Wheel.Upon arriving in Tibet, Joseph met with the Buddhist monks who led him to the prayer wheels he sought after. Before encountering the wheels the monks welcomed him with delicious holy tea, unknown to Joseph the tea was laced with small amounts of opium.After consuming this small amount of hallucinogenic tea, Joseph’s encounter with the prayer wheels was altered to a euphoric state.Joseph who had never experienced drugs believed it was the prayer wheels that gave him the mind altering state.This state of mind directly influenced the creation of his next two shrines, “Praise Wheel with Automatic Protruding Strobe” and “Transistor Praise Wheel”.

Joseph Buttle:“Oscillating Transistor Praise Wheel”

“Transistor Praise Wheel” was created shortly after “Praise Wheel with Automatic protruding strobe”.Both shrines sufficed for the same worshiping purposes, the only difference was transistors were used in the place of mechanics in “Transistor Praise Wheel”By the late 50’s transistors had been out a few years and the American consumer had been taught that if it still had tubes it was antiquated.Joseph took advantage of this whim and introduced to his consumer an upgrade to his first praise wheel.Regrettably electronics did not mix as well with worship as Joseph had hoped they would.

Smitty Regula: “Homage to Buttle”

“Homage to Buttle” was created by Smitty Regula in honor of Joseph Buttle, his mission in life, and the accomplishments he made in life through the development of ShrineCo.The shrine sabotages you with ground Styrofoam, shocks you with loud horns and bright lights, and projects a short film of Buttle’s daily life.

Icky & Feaser (Buttle’s 2nd cousins): “Infinite Loop”

Icky and Feaser were Joseph’s envious distant second cousins who sought to be a part of ShrineCo.They constructeda plan to invite Joseph to Georgia for a business meeting to view a possible shrine product they created themselves. Although Joseph loved the concept of a 4 band continuous loop to create positive energy for worship, he declined Icky and Feaser’s offer.Joseph took great pride in the quality of his shrines, obviously his 2nd cousin’s creation was junk scraped together.Joseph would not jeopardize his business with Icky and Feaser’s hillbilly contraption.He gently let them down advising them that shrine creation was a highly skilled operation, and that they should not attempt this course of action again.

Joseph Buttle: “Portable Diagnostic Multi-Shrine Calibrator”

By the mid to late 70’s Joseph had been producing shrines for about 25 years!He had quiet a bit of his product out in the field operating on a daily basis.Frank Worth, Joseph’s financial adviser, asked him if he was ever worried about the stamina of some of his older shrines.Joseph never thought of this dilemma. Subconsciously over time he built an anxiety concerning the quality of operation of his initially built shrines.This anxiety bothered Joseph to a point to where he took action and built the “Portable Diagnostic Multi-Shrine Calibrator”.Joseph was now able to service any shrine, antiquated or outdated, he put the yee-haa back into ones worship and praise/sacrifice

Arnold Newman, a famous portrait photographer, had a special client, Margaret Hargrove. Little is known about Ms. Hargrove except for she adored her self to an outlandish extent. Ms. Hargrove hired Newman to take her portrait, she was so infatuated with the picture of herself, and how well Newman had created it, that she had a second one made, and then a third, and fourth, eventually an obsession was created and daily portraits of herself were made.Newman was actually quite frightened by Ms. Hargrove’s behavior, and did not want to continue the daily portraits. Newman in search of an escape spoke to his friend, Frank Worth, who coincidentally was also Buttle’s financial advisor. Rather jokingly he exclaimed to Worth how Ms. Hargrove was so besotted with her portraits she might as well have a shrine buildt for herself.This is when Worth told Newman about Joseph Buttle and ShrineCo.

Newman had to do something about his dilemma with Ms. Hargrove, he could not continue photographing her on a daily basis and still continue with his own projects, but he did not want to dismiss her aggressively, so he visited ShrineCo. and presented his problem to Buttle. Buttle knew exactly what to do, and created the “Self Absorption” Shrine. “A shrine for one’s self” as he described. Buttle created a shrine that Ms. Hargrove could visit daily and receive a self portrait from, a tool of self idolism, a tool that removed Newman from the unwanted task with out hostility.

Everything was great except for one problem; Newman re-sold the shrine to Ms. Hargrove for three times the price labeled as his own work. Buttle found out about the costly infringement transaction and was furious, demanding the return of his shrine from Newman.Unfortunately Buttle did not create a bill of sale for the shrine, or sign his work, so there was nothing he could do.So he never spoke to Newman again, and Ms Hargrove lived happily with her shrine using it every day to for the rest of her life.

Time Ma-Shrine – Worship Extender In the 1950’s Joseph Buttle witnessed different religious groups inducting persons of age into their style of worship. Joseph was amazed with the idea that people of religion bred and prepared entities to act as missionaries, scouts, or pilgrims to migrate and convert individuals despite age. Buttle noticed these religions were extremely appreciative of those patrons who were lifetime members of the religion, who had practiced the religion daily from birth to death. Buttle made the assumption that humans who practiced these religions daily earned higher religious credit in the afterlife. He literally believed that persons accumulated religious points to cash in once moving on to the afterlife, as if the persons who had prayed daily accumulated a higher spiritual recognition. After this assumption Buttle decided to invest in the opportunity to reap off the persons of age who were new to the religion, persons who had not prayed daily, or persons who had simply been lazy. Buttle’s idea was to get these certain individuals the credit they needed to redeem in the afterlife before they died. He did this with his next amazing invention, Time Ma-Shrine – Worship Extender. A person who had been indicted into a religion later in life could make up all the lost prayer time easily by sending prayer back in time. Using this device a lazy backslider could send prayer and worship back every day that was missed. The chore of daily prayer was over!

This slide show was an experiment where I pay homage to Joseph Buttle by re-inacting a door to door sale of a selection of shrines

Note: all shrines created by Drew Bettge, Smitty Regula exist as a cover up for Drew, Buttle serves as a cover up for Smitty. All shrines are original work by Smitty Regula.Shrines shown in pictures are 2nd and 3rd hand representations of descriptions Joseph Buttle may or may not have produced.Please direct all questions to Smitty or Drew. smittyregula@gmail.com.